Report -New Milford Pumping Station, New Jersey - January 2010

28DL Full Member

The New Milford Plant was built and expanded as a pumping and filtration plant by the Hackensack Water Company over the course of 29 years between 1882 and 1911. The plant is built on Van Buskirk Island, a man-made island on the Hackensack River. Hackensack Water Co. ceased operations here in 1990 and offered the site to Bergen County, which has left the site vacant despite many proposals for redevelopment since taking ownership in 1993. It was registered as a state and national Historic Site and, in 2002 the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed Hackensack Water Company site on its list of "11 Most Endangered National Historic Places."

Currently the property is watched after by the Water Works Conservancy which plans to turn the Romanesque-Revival pump house and filtration plant into a historic science and technology museum. The pump house underwent some restoration and stabilization in 2002, and it appears that the plans for redevelopment still stand although no work is being done.

Didn't have time to do the whole thing this time around but I will be back despite risky access. I felt the pump house alone warrants a report.